Original patience games

While browsing the Net the other day I suddenly noticed that many Patience games of my invention appear on a variety of websites without any mention of their authorship. So I decided to open up a section containing all those for which I am responsible. I have shifted into it the games of Black Hole and Penguin, which formerly came under Original Card Games, and have added seven others. All first appeared in my "Penguin Book of Patience" (1979), except Rittenhouse, which I introduced in "Teach Yourself Card Games for One" (1994), and Sticko, which I have just devised. I hope you enjoy them, preferably with real cards (as I do), but, failing that, by playing them online at Tom Warfield's long-running and highly comprehensive Pretty Good Solitaire site.

You will find a selection of 9 different solitary or rather patience games with a short description of what the game entails, and you will be able to find some of them as slot version if you click here. These games might become rapidly your favorite games, as I continue to enjoy them after playing it for a few decades now. Card games are constantly evolving; however, the classics remain undeniably every generation’s favorite. Therefore, it was a must for me to dedicate one section of my website to these phenomenal card games that will make you enjoy alone time!

Patience card games with 1 pack

Black Hole:Cosmic golf for one player

Curds & Whey:A novel member of the spider family

Gay Gordons:Dance your way through this elimination game

Penguin:One of my most popular games

Striptease:A tantalizing game that doesn't always reveal all

Patience card games with 2 packs

Archway:A Victorian classic updated for modern tastes

Buffalo Bill:Best played in wide open spaces

Rittenhouse:As played by Geoffrey T. Spaulding at Rittenhouse Manor

Patience card games with a 32-card pack

Sticko:Fiendish adaptation of my two-player game Stucco

Historic card games

Now, let us take a look at the histories of classic games such as Poker and Euchre and details of historic games, such as Gleek and Quadrille, which are now only museum pieces. This project was started at the suggestion of John McLeod, who tells me that visitors to his award-winning Pagat website for the rules of card games often inquire after the play of some old game that they have come across in period novels or films or readings in cultural history. Some of the descriptions first appeared in my Oxford Guide to Card Games (1990, republished as A History of Card Games in 1991), but I've since been revising them in the light of further research and discoveries. If you have any comments, queries, or suggestions for additional entries, do let me know.

Calypso: The personal trump game from Trinidad (4pp)

Costly Colors:The colorful cousin of Crib (2/4pp)

Euchre: A classic American game of European origin (2/4pp)

Gin Rummy:The great game of Hollywood and Broadway (2p)

Gleek:An old English of tricks and bluff (3p)

Laugh & lie down:A hilarious pairing-off game of Tudor England (4/5p)

Loo:A once notorious trick-taking gambling game (3-7p)

Losing Lodam:The Gargantuan ancestor of Hearts (3-7p)

Maw:The five-fingered game of the Gaels (2-7p, 5 best)

Noddy: The knavish ancestor of Cribbage (2/4pp)

Patience:Origins and history of card solitaires (1p)

Penneech:The game that changes trump from trick to trick (2p)

Piquet:The aristocrat of card games (2p)

Poker:Origins and history of the great American pastime (2-10p)

Pope Joan:Introducing "the Curse of Scotland" (3-7p)

Quadrille:The courtly ladies' game of 18th century France (4p)

Reverses:The 16th-century ancestor of Hearts (4pp)

Speculation:Jane Austen's Mansfield Park game (3-7p)